Here are two launch dates you might want to put on your
calendar, July 23 and July 11. AMD will introduce its widely hyped LGA
1207-pin Socket on July 11, followed by Intel's shipments of its widely
hyped Core 2 Duo Conroe processor on July 23 -- just in time for Kristopher's
twenty-third birthday.

With the Opteron Revision F launch, we will see the new processor cores Santa
Ana and Santa Rosa. Santa Ana is actually a dual-core
AM2 component targeted specifically for workstations and 1U servers, while Santa
Rosa is an LGA-1207 dual-core Socket F processor. There are no
single-core Opteron Revision F processors. Quad-core Revision G Opterons (Deerhound)
are not anticipated
for at least another year.

AMD's new 1207-pin socket, dubbed Socket F, has made a few appearances
on DailyTech already. The socket will be AMD's first
land-grid-array (LGA) socket using the same method of contact pads for the
processor found on Intel LGA-775 and LGA-771 processors. The retention
clip is also a radical change for AMD.

Update 06/18/2006: Intel has pushed the official embargo of Conroe to July 27, 2006 (the shipment dates are still July 23), and AMD has moved the Socket F launch to August 1, 2006.

"So if you want to save the planet, feel free to drive your Hummer. Just avoid the drive thru line at McDonalds." -- Michael Asher